When Quakers Had Their Own State (Pennsylvania), Did They Fund a Military?

Now that We
Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader is complete and I’ve finished
patting myself on the back for a job well done, I’ve started to work on a
spin-off project: a reader that concentrates on war tax resistance by American
Quakers from the 17th
through the 19th century.

I planned to take the existing sections of this material from
We Won’t Pay! and add a little more context and a
handful of additional works. But the more I researched, the more I found, and
so this is turning out to be a bigger project than I’d anticipated.

I’ll share some of what I find here on The Picket
Line as I uncover it. Today, some excerpts from Isaac Sharpless’s
1898 book about the Pennsylvania colony:
A Quaker Experiment in Government.

There was a difficult balancing act in Pennsylvania, where Quakers for the
first time held political power and were able to try to turn their ethical
principles into guidelines for social organization. The English government,
under which the colony was founded, was sporadically tolerant of and
persecutory towards the Quakers — and so the colony felt the need to mollify
the mother country and assure it of their loyalty and harmlessness. From time
to time, the demands of the crown would conflict with Quaker principles.

In May, 1695, a requisition was made on
Pennsylvania for eighty men with officers for the defense of New York. The
Council advised calling together the Assembly, but not until harvest was
over. The Assembly united with the Council in refusing the bald request,
reminding the Governor of Fletcher’s promise that the last appropriation
should not “be dipped in blood,” but should be used “to feed the hungry and
clothe the naked” Indians, and suggested the such of it as had not been used
as promised should go towards the present emergency. The Council finally
offered two bills, one to make an appropriation, and one to demand a return
to Penn’s Frame of Government, which was held in abeyance since his return to
power. As the Governor had to take both or neither he dissolved the Assembly.
A year later he was willing to make the required
concession, and urged that the money was needed in New York “for food and
raiment to be given to those nations of Indians that have lately suffered
extremely by the French, which is a fair opportunity for you, that for
conscience cannot contribute to war, to raise money for that occasion, be it
under the color of support of government or relief of those Indians or what
else you may call it.” The Assembly made the necessary vote and the
Constitution of 1696 was obtained in payment.

The next time the pacific principles of the Assembly were tried was in
1701, when the English Government asked for £350
for the purpose of erecting forts on the frontiers of New York on the plea
that they were for the general defense. Penn, who was then in the Province,
faithfully observed his promise “to transmit,” but declined to give any
advice to the Assembly. The members were evidently greatly agitated, and
repeatedly asked copies of his speech, which was in fact only the King’s
letter. After some fencing two reports appeared. One, from the Pennsylvania
delegates, urged their poverty, owing to taxes and quit-rents, also the lack
of contributions of other colonies, but added plainly, “We desire the
Proprietor would candidly represent our conditions to the King, and assure
him of our readiness (according to our abilities) to acquiesce with and
answer his commands so far as our religious persuasions shall
permit, as becomes loyal and faithful subjects so to do.” The other
answer came from the Delaware portion of the Assembly, excusing themselves
because they had no forts of their own.

When the Assembly met, a month later, Penn again referred to the King’s
letter, but nothing was done, and the matter was not pressed.

Governor Evans made several attempts to establish a militia, but the
Assembly refused any sanction, and the voluntary organizations were failures.

Lewis Morris, a colonial official in New Jersey and New York, noted that
Quakers outside of Pennsylvania at this time, who were being subjected to
military taxes, were refusing to pay and having their property seized by tax
collectors — “generally above ten times the value, which, when they came to
expose to sale, nobody would buy, so that there is or lately was a house at
Burlington, filled with demonstrations of the obstinacy of the Quakers, there
was boots, hats, shoes, clothes, dishes, plows, knives, earthenware, with many
other things and these distresses amount, as is said, to above 1,000£ a year,
almost enough to defray the charges of the government without any other way.”

Sharpless again:

The military question came up in 1709 in a more
serious form. An order came from the Queen to the various colonies to furnish
quotas of men at their own expense towards an army to invade Canada. New York
was to supply 800, Connecticut 350, Jersey 200, and Pennsylvania 150. In
transmitting the order Governor Gookin, who evidently anticipated difficulty,
suggested that the total charge would be about £4,000. He says, “Perhaps it
may seem difficult to raise such a number of men in a country where most of
the inhabitants are of such principles as will not allow them the use of arms;
but if you will raise the sum for the support of government, I don’t doubt
getting the number of men desired whose principles will allow the use of
arms.”

This was too manifest an evasion for the Assembly to adopt. Its first answer
was to send in a bill of grievances. The opportunity was too good to be lost,
and David Lloyd, then Speaker, made the most of it.

In the meantime the Quaker members of the Council met some of their
co-religionists of the Assembly “and there debated their opinions freely and
unanimously to those of the House, that notwithstanding their profession and
principles would not by any means allow them to bear arms, yet it was their
duty to support the government of their sovereign, the Queen, and to
contribute out of their estates according to the exigencies of her public
affairs, and therefore they might and ought to present the Queen with a
proper sum of money.”

The Assembly the next day sent an address to the Governor which said, “Though
we cannot for conscience’ sake comply with the furnishing a supply for such a
defense as thou proposest, yet in point of gratitude of the Queen for her
great and many favors to us we have resolved to raise a present of £500 which
we humbly hope she will be pleased to accept,
etc.,
etc.”

To this the Governor replied that he would not sign the bill. If the Assembly
would not hire men to fight, there was no scruple which would prevent a more
liberal subscription to the Queen’s needs. The Assembly was immovable, and
asked to be allowed to adjourn, as harvest time was approaching.

The Governor refused consent, when the House abruptly terminated the whole
matter.

Resolved, N.C.D., That this House cannot agree to the Governor’s
proposal, directly or indirectly, for the expedition to Canada, for the
reasons formerly given.

Resolved, N.C.D., That the House do continue their resolution of raising
£500 as a present for the Queen, and do intend to prepare a bill for
that purpose at their next meeting on the
15th of August next, and not before.

The House then adjourned without waiting for the Governor’s consent.

The Governor sadly admitted that nothing could be done with such an Assembly,
and gave a rather facetious but truthful account in a letter to London, two
months later. “The Queen having honored me with her commands that this
Province should furnish out 150 men for its expedition against Canada, I
called an Assembly and demanded £4,000; they being all Quakers, after much
delay resolved, N.C, that it was contrary to their
religious principles to hire men to kill one another. I told some of them
the Queen did not hire men to kill one another, but to destroy her enemies.
One of them answered the Assembly understood English. After I had tried all
ways to bring them to reason they again resolved,
N.C, that they could not directly or indirectly raise money for an expedition to
Canada, but they had voted the Queen £500 as a token of their respect,
etc., and that
the money should be put into a safe hand till they were satisfied
from England it should not be employed for the use of war. I told them the
Queen did not want such a sum, but being a pious and good woman perhaps she
might give it to the clergy sent hither for the propagation of the Gospel;
one of them answered that was worse than the other, on which arose a debate
in the Assembly whether they should give money or not, since it might be
employed for the use of war, or against their future establishment, and
after much wise debate it was carried in the affirmative by one voice only.
Their number is 26 [Eight from each county and two from Philadelphia]. They
are entirely governed by their speaker, one David Lloyd.”

The service performed by “one David Lloyd” to the integrity of
the Quaker testimony against war is strikingly revealed in this letter. The
Assembly, more emphatically than the official records show, took effective
measures to maintain their position with perfect consistency.

The issue came up again a couple of years later:

In 1711 a… request was made by the government,
and in response £2,000 was voted for the Queen’s use. This money never aided
any military expedition, but was appropriated by a succeeding Governor to
his own use, and the fact was used as an argument in
1740 against similar grants.

“We did not see it,” Isaac Norris says, in 1711,
“to be inconsistent with our principles to give the Queen money
notwithstanding any use she might put it to, that not being our part but
hers.”

This dodge of granting money “for the Queen’s use” when military requisitions
were requested, as a way of avoiding making direct military expenditures,
became a habit, but its dodgy nature was pretty clear. This would come back to
bite Quakers later, when they would be reminded how flexible their principles
could be.

[B]eginning with 1737, the gradual alienation of
the Indian tribes made a disturbed frontier ready to be dangerous at the
first outbreak of war, and new conditions prevailed.

Hitherto the relation of the Friends to these inevitable military
solicitations had been largely that of passivity. They would not interfere
with the movements of those who desired to form military companies. If the
Governor chose to engage in the arming and drilling of voluntary militia, he
had his commission from the Proprietors, and they from the Charter of Charles
Ⅱ. It was no matter for
the Assembly. The meeting organizations would endeavor to keep all Quakers
from any participation in these un-Friendly proceedings, and the Quaker
Assemblymen had their own consciences to answer to, as well as their
ecclesiastical authorities, if they violated pacific principles.

When it came to voting money in lieu of personal service, the legislators
had a difficult road to follow. If the government needed aid, it was their
duty, in common with the other colonies, to supply it. Even though the need
was the direct result of war, as nearly all national taxes are, they were
ready to assume their share of the burden. Caesar must have his dues as well
as God, and a call for money, except when coupled directly with a
proposition to use it for military attack or defense, was generally
responded to, after its potency as an agent in procuring a little more
liberty was exhausted. They would not vote money for an expedition to Canada
or to erect forts, but they would for “the King’s use,”
using all possible securities to have it appropriated to something else than
war expenses. The responsibility of expenditure rested on the King. There
were legitimate expenses of government, and if these were so inextricably
mingled with warlike outlay that the Assembly could not separate them, they
would still support the Government.

It is easy to accuse them of inconsistency in the proceedings which follow.
It was a most unpleasant alternative thrust before honest men. The
responsibility of government was upon them as the honorable recipients of
the popular votes. Great principles, the greatest of all in their minds
being freedom of conscience, were at stake. Each call for troops or supplies
they fondly hoped would be the last. Their predecessors’ actions had
secured the blessings of peace and liberty to Pennsylvania for sixty years,
and if they were unreasonably stringent, their English enemies held over
their heads the threat to drive them from power by the imposition of an
oath. Then the persecutions of themselves and their friends, which their
forefathers had left England to avoid, might be meted out to them, and the
Holy Experiment brought to an end.

Nor is it necessary to assume that their motives were entirely unselfish.
They had ruled the Province well, and were proficients in government. Their
leaders doubtless loved the power and influence they legitimately possessed,
and they did not care to give it away unnecessarily. They tried to find a
middle ground between shutting their eyes to all questions of defense on the
one side, and direct participation in war on the other. This they sought by
a refusal for themselves and their friends to do any service personally, and
a further refusal to vote money except in a general way for the use of the
government. If any one comes to the conclusion that during the latter part
of the period of sixteen years now under consideration the evasion was
rather a bald one, it is exactly the conclusion the Quakers themselves came
to, and they resigned their places as a consequence. The iniquities of
others over whom they had no control brought about a condition where Quaker
principles would not work, and they refused to modify them in the vain
attempt. For a time rather weakly halting, when the crucial nature of the
question became clear, and either place or principle had to be sacrificed,
their decision was in favor of the sanctity of principles.

Entwined in the debates over military requisitions were power struggles and
political battles between the Governor and the Assembly, between England and
its colonies, and between poorer rural Pennsylvanians on the western frontier
(who were more threatened both by hostile Indians and by taxes) and wealthier
urban Quakers in the east (who held political power).

A voluntary company was… organized and supplied by private subscriptions.
This took away from their masters a number of indentured servants, whose time
was thus lost, and in voting £3,000 for the King’s use the Assembly made it a
condition that such servants such be discharged from the militia and no more
enlisted. The Governor refused to accept it, and in wrath wrote a letter to
the Board of Trade not intended for home reading, berating the Quakers for
disobedience, stating how they had neglected following his advice to withdraw
themselves from the Assembly, but had rather increased their majority there.
He advised that they be refused permission to sit there in the future. A copy
of this letter was secured by the Assembly’s agent in England, and great was
their indignation. The disturbances culminated in an election riot in
Philadelphia in 1742 in which both sides used
force, the Quaker party having the best of it and electing Isaac Norris. They
re-elected their ticket, with the aid of the Germans, and controlled the
Assembly by an overwhelming majority. To show their loyalty they voted a
considerable sum for the King’s use, but refused Governor Thomas any salary
till he had given up his pretentious show of power and signed a number of
bills to which he had objected. After this he worked very harmoniously with
them till 1746.

The next year the Governor asked them to aid New
England in an attack on Cape Breton. They told him they had no interest in
the matter. He called them together again in harvest time to ask them to join
in an expedition against Louisburg. A week later came word that Louisburg had
surrendered, and the request was transferred to a call for aid in garrisoning
the place, and in supplying provisions and powder. The Assembly replied that
the “peaceable principles professed by divers members of the present Assembly
do not permit them to join in raising of men or providing arms and
ammunition, yet we have ever held it our duty to render tribute to Cæsar.”
They therefore appropriated £4,000 for “bread, beef, pork, flour, wheat or
other grain.” The Governor was advised not to accept the grant, as provisions
were not needed. He replied that the “other grain” meant gunpowder, and so
expended a large portion of the money, There is probably no evidence that the
Assembly sanctioned this construction, though they never so far as appears
made any protest.

Again in 1746 aid was asked of the Assembly
towards an expedition against Canada. After forcing the Governor to yield the
point as to how the money should be raised, they appropriated £5,000 “for the
King’s use.”

This “or other grain” anecdote comes from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography,
which makes much of the flexible principles of Quaker politicians. There seems
to have been quite a folklore of Quaker hypocrisy at the time, frequently
showing Quakers relying on the letter-of-the-law of their principles or the
spirit-of-the-law depending on which would be most materially advantageous.

Again and again did successive Governors call for military appropriations. As
often did the Quaker Assembly express a willingness to comply provided the
money was obtained by loans to be repaid in a term of years rather than by a
tax. The governors said their instructions prevented their sanction to this
proceeding, and except when the necessity was urgent refused to permit the
bill to be enacted into a law. The Assembly frequently reminded the Governor
that they were unable to vote any money for warlike purposes, and personally
would contribute nothing in the way of service, but that they were loyal
subjects of the King and acknowledged their obligations to aid in his
government. Had they granted regular aid, war or no war, their position would
have been greatly strengthened, but being given “for the King’s use” in
direct response to a call for military assistance, knowing perfectly how the
money was to be expended, they cannot be excused from the charge of a certain
amount of shiftiness. The effect, however, was to save their fellow-members
in the Province from compulsory military service, and from direct war taxes.
They thus shielded the consciences of sensitive Friends, preserved their
charter from Court attack, broke down the worst evils of proprietary
pretensions, and secured large additions of liberty. Whether or not the
partial sacrifice of principle, if so it was, was too high a price for these
advantages, was differently decided in those days, and will be today. An
unbending course would but have hastened the inevitable crisis.

That they paid these taxes unwillingly and were generally recognized as true
to their principles is evidenced by many statements of their opponents. In
1748 the Council writes to the Governors of New
York and Massachusetts asking for cannon for the voluntary military companies
then forming through Benjamin Franklin’s influence, and says, “As our Assembly
consists for the most part of Quakers principled against defense the
inhabitants despair of their doing anything for our protection.” Again later
Thomas Penn writes on the same subject: “I observe the Assembly broke up
without giving any assistance, which is what you must have expected.” This
belief that the Quakers in the Assembly would not do anything for the armed
defense of the Province was general both in England and America.

Then came the French-and-Indian War:

In 1754 the Governor, at the instance of the
Proprietors, who anticipated the French and Indian troubles on the western
frontier, endeavored to induce the Assembly to pass a bill for compulsory
military service for those not conscientious about bearing arms. He evidently
did not expect much. “As I am well acquainted with their religious scruples I
never expected they would appropriate money for the purpose of war or warlike
preparation, but thought they might have been brought to make a handsome
grant for the King’s use, and have left the disposition of it to me, as they
have done on other occasions of like nature,” he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie
of Virginia. “But,” a few months later he
added, “I can see nothing to prevent this very fine Province, owing to the
absurdity of its constitution and the principles of the governing part of
its inhabitants, from being an easy prey to the attempts of the common enemy.”

This was after the Assembly had voted £10,000, but coupled the grant with
conditions the Governor would not accept. While they were debating the
question Braddock came into the country as commander of the combined forces
in an expedition against Fort DuQuesne. Pressure came down strong and heavy
on the Quaker Assembly. Their own frontier was invaded. Their own Indians, as
a result of the wicked and foolish policy of their executive, were in league
with the invaders. All classes were excited. To aid the great expedition
which at one stroke was to break the French power and close the troubles was
felt to be a duty. Franklin diligently fanned the warlike spirit, procuring
wagons for the transfer of army stores, and was extremely valuable to the
expedition at some cost to himself.

The Governor wrote to Braddock telling him they had a Province of 300,000
people, provisions enough to supply an army of 100,000, and exports enough to
keep 500 vessels employed. They had no taxes, a revenue of £7,000 a year and
£15,000 in bank, yet would neither establish a militia nor vote men money or
provisions, notwithstanding he had earnestly labored with the Assembly, and
he was ashamed of them. He does not explain that they had repeatedly offered
sums of money, but that he would not accept the conditions. As Braddock
himself admitted, Pennsylvania had supported him quite as liberally as
Virginia. This was partly done by private enterprise and partly by
appropriations of the Assembly, to reward friendly Indians, to open a road to
Ohio, and to provision the troops.

Braddock was defeated. The Indians were let loose on the frontiers. Daily
accounts of harrowing scenes came up to the Council and Assembly. Settlers
moved into the towns and many districts were depopulated. Strong were the
expressions of wrath against the Quakers, who were held responsible for the
defenseless state of the Province. [“The people exclaim against the Quakers,
and some are scarce restrained from burning the houses of those few who are
in this town (Reading).” — Letter of Edmund Biddle]

This was hardly a just charge, even from the standpoint of those who favored
military defense, for the Assembly had signified its willingness to vote
£50,000, an unprecedented amount, to be provided by “a tax on all the real
and personal estates within the Province,” which the Governor refused to
accept. While the matter was in abeyance the time for the new election of
Assemblymen came around, and both parties, except the stricter Quakers, who
were becoming alarmed, put forth their greatest exertions. The old Assembly
was sustained, the Friends, with those closely associated with them, having
twenty-six out of the thirty-six members.

The new House went on with the work of the old. They adopted a militia law
for those “willing and desirous” of joining companies for the defense of the
Province. This is prefaced by the usual declaration: “Whereas this Province
was settled (and a majority of the Assembly have ever since been) of the
people called Quakers, who though they do not as the world is now
circumstanced condemn the use of arms in others, yet are principled against
bearing arms themselves,” explaining also that they are representatives of
the Province and not of a denomination, they proceed to lay down rules for
the organization of the volunteers. After the Proprietors had given their
£5,000 the Assembly also voted £55,000 for the relief of friendly Indians and
distressed frontiersmen, “and other purposes,” without any disguise to the
fact that much of it was intended for military defense, though it was not so
stated in the bill. Before this was done, while they were still insisting on
taxing the Penn estates, in answer to the charge that they were neglectful of
public interests, secure in the confidence of their constituents just most
liberally given, they say: “In fine we have the most sensible concern for the
poor distressed inhabitants of the frontiers. We have taken every step in our
power, consistent with the just rights of the freemen of Pennsylvania, for
their relief, and we have reason to believe that in the midst of their
distresses they themselves do not wish to go further. Those who would
give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve
neither liberty nor safety.” Their position definitely was, We will vote
money liberally for defensive purposes, but we will take care to secure our
rights as freemen, and we will not require any one to give personal service
against his conscience.

The money was largely spent in erecting and garrisoning a chain of forts
extending along the Kittatinny hills from the Delaware River to the Maryland
frontier.

So now I know the context of that frequently-quoted maxim!
Interesting!

Now we’re in the midst of the time when the tension between Quaker principles
and political compromises was reaching the breaking point. John Woolman’s
journal reflects that individual Quakers were beginning to adopt war tax
resistance against the taxes of the Quaker legislature. The Friends Quarterly
Meeting at Philadelphia tried to hold things together:

[I]t is remarkable that for sixteen years successively, more than half of
which was a time of war, a set of men conscientiously principled against
warlike measures have been chosen by those, of whom the majority were not in
that particular of the same principle; and this we apprehend may be chiefly
attributed to the repeated testimonies we have constantly given of our
sincere and ready disposition to provide for the exigencies of the
Government, and to demonstrate our gratitude for the favors we enjoy under it
by cheerfully contributing towards the support of it according to our
circumstances in such manner as we can do with peace and satisfaction of
mind. That this has been the constant practice of our assemblies, the records
of their proceedings will evidently show.

We consider that in the present situation of public affairs, the exigencies
being great, the supplies must be proportioned thereto; and we only desire
that as we cannot be concerned in preparations for war, we may be permitted
to serve the government by raising money and contributing towards the Public
Exegencies by such methods and in such manner as past experience has assured
us are least burdensome to the industrious poor, and most consistent with
our religious and civil rights and liberties, and which our present
Proprietaries, when one of them was personally present, consented to and
approved, and to which no reasonable or just objection has ever since been
made.

And a number of Quakers petitioned the Assembly, saying that they would
be unable to willingly pay the proposed war taxes. Sharpless again:

In Eleventh Month 1755 twenty Friends,
including Anthony Morris, Israel and John Pemberton, Anthony Benezet, John
Churchman, and others, representing the most influential and “weighty”
members of the Yearly Meeting, addressed the Assembly. They say they are very
willing to contribute taxes to cultivate friendship with Indians, to relieve
distress, or other benevolent purposes, but to expect them to be taxed for
funds which are placed in the hands of committees to be expended for war, is
inconsistent with their peaceable testimony, and an infringement of their
religious liberties. Many Friends will have to refuse to pay such a tax and
suffer distraint of goods, [this afterwards happened in numerous cases] and
thus “that free enjoyment of liberty of conscience for the sake of which
our forefathers left their native country and settled this then a wilderness
by degrees be violated.” “We sincerely assure you we have no temporal motives
for thus addressing you, and could we have preserved peace in our own minds
and with each other we should have declined it, being unwilling to give you
any unnecessary trouble and deeply sensible of your difficulty in discharging
the trust committed to you irreproachably in these perilous times, which hath
engaged our fervent desires that the immediate instruction of supreme wisdom
may influence your minds, and that being preserved in a steady attention
thereto you may be enabled to secure peace and tranquility to yourselves and
those you represent by pursuing measures consistent with our peaceable
principles, and then we trust we may continue humbly to confide in the
protection of that Almighty Power whose providence has hitherto been as walls
and bulwarks round about us.”

As the Assembly was composed, this was an earnest plea from the responsible
Friends to their fellow religionists to stand uncompromisingly by their
principles. It was not very kindly received. The reply indicated that the
signers had no right to speak for others than themselves, that they had not
duly considered the customs of the past, particularly the grant of £2,000 in
1711, and the address “is therefore an unadvised
and indiscreet application to the House at this time.” Four members of the
Assembly dissent from this reply.

On the other hand we have a strong petition sent
about the same date to the King, signed by
numerous influential men in Philadelphia, stating that the Province was
entirely bare to the attack of enemies, “not a single armed man, nor, at the
public expense, a single fortification to shelter the unhappy inhabitants.”
… “We have no hopes of seeing the grievances redressed here while a great
majority of men whose avowed principles are against bearing arms find means
continually to thrust themselves into the Assembly of this Province.” They
ask the interposition of royal authority to insist on proper defense being
provided.

The attorneys for the petitioners before the Board of Trade made the most
sweeping and unfounded charges, full of errors of fact and unconcealed
animus, and ending with the recommendation “that the King be advised to
recommend it to his Parliament that no Quaker be permitted to sit in any
Assembly in Pennsylvania or any part of America,” and that this result
should be produced by the imposition of an oath.

In the minds of the Friends the crisis was reached when the Governor and
Council (William Logan, son of James Logan, only dissenting) in
the spring of 1756 declared war against
the Delaware Indians, the old allies and friends of William Penn, but now in
league with the French and killing and plundering on the frontiers. They were
quite sure that peaceful and just measures would detach the Indians from
their alliance, and that war was unnecessary. The lines were becoming more
closely drawn, and the middle ground was narrowing, so that it was impossible
to stand upon it. Either the principle of the iniquity of war must be
maintained in its entirety, or war must be vigorously upheld and prosecuted.
Some Friends with Franklin took the latter position, but the great majority
closed up their ranks around the principle of peace in its integrity. In
Sixth month 1756 six of the old members of
the house, James Pemberton, Joshua Morris, William Callender, William Peters,
Peter Worral and Francis Parvin, resigned their seats, giving as their
reason, “As many of our constituents seem of opinion that the present
situation of public affairs calls upon us for services in a military way,
which from a conviction of judgment after mature deliberation we cannot
comply with, we conclude it most conducive to the peace of our minds, and the
reputation of our religious profession to persist in our resolution of
resigning our seats, which we now accordingly do, and request these our
reasons may be entered on the minutes of the house.” In
the same fall several other Friends
declined re-election, and after the next House assembled four others, Mahlon
Kirkbride, William Hoyl, Peter Dicks and Nathaniel Pennock, also resigned.
“Understanding that the ministry have requested the Quakers, who from the
first settlement of the Colony have been the majority of the Assemblies of
this Province, to suffer their seats during the difficult situation of the
affairs of the Colonies to be filled by members of other denominations in
such manner as to perform without any scruples all such laws as may be
necessary to be enacted for the defense of the Province in whatever manner
they may judge best suited to the circumstances of it; and notwithstanding we
think this has been pretty fully complied with at the last election, yet at
the request of our friends, being willing to take off all possible objection,
we who have (without any solicitation on our part) been returned as
representatives in this Assembly, request we may be excused, and suffered to
withdraw ourselves and vacate our seats in such manner as may be attended
with the least trouble and most satisfactory to this honorable House.”

The places of all these Friends were filled by members of other religious
denominations, and Quaker control over and responsibility for the
Pennsylvania Assembly closed with 1756 and was
never resumed.

The winter of 1755–6 was one of
difference and perplexity among Philadelphia Friends. On the one side were
the men of spiritual power, whose voices exercised the prevailing influence
in the meetings for business. On the other were the disciples of Logan, who
being manifestly out of sympathy with well-established Quaker views, urged
the necessity of vigorous defense, caught the surrounding warlike spirit, and
with personal service and money aided Franklin and the militia. Between the
two stood the “Quaker governing class,” who controlled the Assembly, who,
while admitting and commending the peaceable doctrines of Friends, considered
their own duty accomplished when they kept aloof from personal participation
and supplied the means by which others carried on the war. This third section
was the product of long experience in political activity. To these men and
their predecessors was owing the successful administration for decades of the
best governed colony in America. They were slow to admit any weakness in
their position, but it was becoming increasingly evident that it was
untenable. There was actual war, and they were, while not personally
responsible for it, indeed while opposing vigorously the policy which had
produced it, now a component part of the government which was carrying it on.
Would they join their brethren in staunch adherence to peace principles, and
thus give up their places in the state as John Bright did afterwards when
Alexandria was bombarded? Would they join Franklin, their associate in
resisting proprietary power, and throw aside their allegiance to the
principles of William Penn, whom they professed greatly to honor?

The question was answered differently by different ones as the winter and
spring passed away. Pressure was strong on both sides. The Governor writing
to London says: “The Quaker preachers and others of great weight were
employed to show in their public sermons, and by going from house to house
through the Province, the sin of taking up arms, and to persuade the people
to be easy and adhere to their principles and privileges.” This was an
enemy’s view of a conservative reaction which was going on within the
Society, which was tired of compromises, was willing to suffer, and could
not longer support the doubtful expediency of voting measures for others to
carry out, of which they could not themselves approve.

We have seen how in the early winter the Assembly rebuked what they
considered the impertinence of the protest of a number of important members
of the Meeting against a war tax. The Meeting mildly emphasized the same
difference in their London epistle of 1756:

The scene of our affairs is in many respects changed since we wrote to you,
and our late peaceful land involved in the desolations and calamities of
war. Had all under our profession faithfully discharged their duty and
maintained our peaceable testimony inviolate we have abundant sense to
believe that divine counsel would have been afforded in a time of so great
difficulty; by attending to which, great part of the present calamities
might have been obviated. But it has been manifest that human contrivances
and policy have been too much depended on, and such measures pursued as
have ministered cause of real sorrow to the faithful; so that we think it
necessary that the same distinction may be made among you as is and ought
to be here between the Acts and Resolutions of the Assembly of this
Province, though the majority of them are our Brethren in profession, and
our acts as a religious Society. We have nevertheless cause to admire and
acknowledge the gracious condescension of infinite goodness towards us, by
which a large number is preserved in a steady dependence on the
dispensations of divine Providence; and we trust the faith and confidence
of such will be supported through every difficulty which may be permitted
to attend them, and their sincerity appear by freely resigning or parting
with those temporal advantages and privileges we have heretofore enjoyed,
if they cannot be preserved without violation of that testimony on the
faithful maintaining of which our true peace and unity depends.

The Friends who refused to pay the tax thought it peculiarly hard that they
were forced to suffer heavy losses through the action of their fellow-members
of the Assembly. These Assemblymen and their friends pointed out on the other
hand that these taxes had been paid in the past, and that it was
ultra-conscientiousness which prevented the willing support of the government
in this hour of peril. The question was a difficult one. Quakers had hitherto
refused a direct war tax and paid everything else, even when war expenditures
were mingled with others. The stricter Friends considered that this tax,
though disguised, was of the objectionable sort, while others did not so
place it. The difference accentuated itself by condemnatory criticisms, and
in 1757 the Yearly Meeting appointed a committee
of thirty, who reported that it was a matter for individual consciences to
determine, and not for the Meeting’s decision.

“We are unanimously of the judgment that it is not proper to enter into a
public discussion of the matter; and we are one in judgment that it is highly
necessary for the Yearly Meeting to recommend that Friends everywhere
endeavor to have their minds covered with frequent charity towards one
another.” The Meeting unanimously adopted this report. This appeal seems to
have been successful, and we hear no more of the difference.

John Fothergill wrote of a lack of faith in the practicality of pacifist
government at the time:

That the majority of the present Assembly were of our Profession who from
their known principles could not contribute to the defense of the Country
now grievously harassed by the Indians under French Influence in a manner
that most people here and even many in Pennsylvania thought necessary it
seemed but common justice in our Friends to decline accepting a trust which
under the present Circumstances they could not discharge, and therefore
advised that we should use our utmost endeavors to prevail upon them
neither to offer themselves as candidates nor to accept of seats in the
Assembly during the present commotions in America.

For should any disaster befall the Province and our Friends continue to fill
the Assembly, it would redound to the prejudice of the Society in general,
and be the means perhaps of subverting a constitution under which the
province had so happily flourished.

And James Pemberton wrote:

Our situation is indeed such as affords cause of melancholy reflection that
the first commencement of persecution in this Province should arise from our
brethren in profession, and that such darkness should prevail as that they
should be instruments of oppressing tender consciences which hath been the
case. The tax in this country being pretty generally collected and many in
this city particularly suffered by distraint of their goods and some being
near cast into jail.

The House has been sitting most of the time since the election, and have as
yet done little business; they have had under their consideration a militia
law, which hath been long in the hands of a committee, and is likely to take
up a great deal more of their time; also a bill for raising £100,000 by a
land tax of the same kind as yours in England; if these pass it is likely
Friends will be subjected to great inconvenience. As the former now stands,
as I am told, the great patriot Franklin, who hath the principal direction of
forming the bills, has discovered very little regard to tender consciences,
which perhaps may partly arise from the observations he must have made since
he has been in that House of the inconsistent conduct of many of our Friends.
That it seems to me he has almost persuaded himself there are few if any that
are in earnest relating to their religious principles, and that he seems
exceedingly studious of propagating a martial spirit all he can.

Later, he wrote: “The number of us who could not be free to pay the tax is
small compared with those who not only comply with it but censure those who
do not.”

Once the pacifist Quakers were out of the Assembly, they could try to apply
their principles outside of the existing formal political structure. Sharpless:

The French were busy in the north, and could not do more to aid the
Pennsylvania Indians than furnish them with supplies. Hence it seemed
possible to detach the Delawares and Shawnese from the hostile alliance. For
this purpose the “Friendly Association” was formed. This was composed of
Quakers, now out of the government, but anxious to terminate the unfortunate
warfare. They refused to pay war taxes, but pledged themselves to contribute
in the interests of peace “more than the heaviest taxes of a war can be
expected to require.”

While this Association was objected to by the State authorities as an
unofficial and to some extent an impertinent body, and charged with political
motives, it succeeded in a remarkable way in bringing together the Indians
and the Government in a succession of treaties, which finally resulted in the
termination of the war and the payment to the Indians of an amount which
satisfied them for the land taken by the Walking Purchase and other dubious
processes. Representatives of the Association, either by invitation of the
Indians or of the Governor, were invariably present, and their largesses to
the Indians much smoothed the way to pacific relations.

In addition to extra-governmental activism of this sort, there was a tendency
to react in repulsion to the compromises of politics by retreating from public
life:

There was growing up in the Society a belief, which was vastly strengthened
by the military experiences of the years between
1740 and 1780, that public life was unfavorable to the quiet Divine
communion which called for inwardness, not outwardness, and which was the
basic principle of Quakerism.… [T]he Yearly Meeting was strenuously engaged
for several years after 1756 in pressing on its
members the desirability of abstaining from civic business.

This was done under the plea that, as matters were, it was impossible to hold
most official positions without administering oaths or voting war taxes. The
former violated Quaker principles directly, and the latter enjoined on their
brethren a service against which their consciences rebelled. In the
interests, therefore, of liberty of conscience, the meetings urged on the
members not to allow themselves to be candidates for judicial or legislative
positions, and in time were largely successful.

In 1758 a report came in to the Yearly Meeting
from a large and influential committee advising against furnishing wagons for
the transport of military stores, and warning against allowing “the examples
and injunctions of some members of our Society who are employed in offices
and stations in civil government” [The distinction between the ecclesiastical
and political Quakers is further indicated in the following: “Thou knows that
we could not in every case vindicate our Assembly who had so greatly deviated
from our known principles and the testimony of our forefathers.” — Israel
Pemberton to Samuel Fothergill, Seventh month,
1757.] to influence anyone against a steady support of the truth. They
also recommend that the Yearly Meeting should “advise and caution against any
Friends accepting of or continuing in offices or stations whereby they are
subjected to the necessity of enjoining or enforcing the compliance of their
brethren or others with any act which they may conscientiously scruple to
perform.”

In any case, Quakers would never again regain political power to the extent
that it would present these same sort of controversies and opportunities for
compromise.

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